David Groves, 2017
A recent poll suggested that 49% of Australians would be in favour of a ban on Muslim immigration (Kenny & Koziol, 2016). Muslims make up a very small percentage of Australia’s population, so relatively few Australians actually know a Muslim personally. Where then did this sentiment come from?
For most of this 49%, the sense of resentment and fear towards Muslims is probably a result of the way Muslims are portrayed in the media. Try this thought experiment: How many negative news stories about Muslims can you think of (from 9/11 to the Sydney siege to welfare payments for multiple wives)? Now try to think of any positive stories you have heard (…Waleed Ali won a gold Logie, I guess?).
While many of us hold no intentional or conscious prejudice against Muslims, the accumulation of negative stories in the media fosters what social psychologists call “implicit bias” (Dovidio, Kawakami, & Beach, 2001). That’s bias driven by automatic psychological processes – you don’t intend to be biased, but you may still have an automatic negative reaction towards a group, such as Muslims. Which is reasonable, if everything you have heard about them is negative.
This negative association has pervasive effects, as a recent newspaper article illuminated (Donelly, 2016). The Muslims interviewed for this story felt they were judged, treated differently, and had experienced verbal or physical abuse in public. These are law-abiding Australian citizens, many with young families. And they say the problem has gotten worse over the last few years. How can this be changed?
Social psychology may have the answer: perspective-taking. Researchers in America showed White participants a video of a Black man experiencing prejudice. One group were asked to imagine how they would feel if they were that man, and this group scored lower on a test of implicit bias than those who did not take his perspective (Todd, Bodenhausen, Richeson, & Galinsky, 2011). Similar studies have shown that perspective taking activities make us more sensitive to discrimination against groups other than our own (Todd, Bodenhausen, & Galinsky, 2012), and cause more overlap between the way we describe ourselves and the way we describe others, reducing our bias by creating a sense of common identity (Davis, Conklin, Smith, & Luce, 1996).
Television is great at encouraging perspective taking. Dramas, sitcoms and documentaries have an extraordinary power to draw a viewer in and make them consider what life is like from a character’s perspective – feeling their frustrations, celebrating their successes. An engaging television drama, portraying Muslims in an honest, but generally positive light, would therefore go a long way toward reducing bias.
The closest we’ve had to this on Australian television was Here Come the Habibs, a sitcom about a Maronite (not Muslim) Lebanese family. While this show did offer a good chance to perspective take, it was criticised for its stereotypical portrayal of Lebanese people (Quinn, 2016). A study by Skorinko and Sinclair (2013) found that when someone strongly confirms a stereotype, perspective taking loses some of its power to reduce bias. These researchers asked people to write an essay about the life of a stereotypical-looking person (an elderly man). The group who imagined life from his perspective made him out to be more stereotypical in their essay. So simply including a token, stereotypical Muslim character in an otherwise White Australian cast would be counter-productive. It would better if our imagined television show had multiple Muslim characters, with individual motivations, qualities, and flaws.
“But wait,” certain polemicists might argue; “shouldn’t Muslims first take our perspective – the majority – before we bother to take theirs?”
This is unlikely to be helpful. Bruneau and Saxe (2012) set up one-on-one conversations between White Americans and Mexican immigrants, and also between Israelis and Palestinians. When the majority groups (White Americans and Israelis) took the perspective of their respective minorities (Mexicans and Palestinians), they had a positive change in attitude toward that group. However, when the roles were reversed so the minority was taking the majority’s perspective, there was much less positive attitude change. Perhaps taking the perspective of someone more privileged than yourself has the effect of increasing resentment, bringing about the realisation that the in-group is taking what they have for granted.
This study highlights the effect of feeling “heard” as a key factor in attitude change. In the media, the majority generally feel heard – the news presenters and fictional characters we see on television largely reflect our culture, concerns and everyday experiences. A great drama would make Muslims feel heard, and enable the majority of Australians to imagine themselves in their shoes, creating a sense of shared identity between the two groups.
Of course, the best way to reduce bias is to actually engage with a minority in person; nothing beats saying hi to a Muslim neighbour and getting to know them. But for those of us with no such connections, a well-written and even-handed television drama may be the next best thing.
References
Bruneau, E.G., & Saxe, R. (2012). The power of being heard: The benefits of ‘perspective- giving’ in the context of intergroup conflict. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 855-866. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.017
Davis, M.H., Conklin, L., Smith, A., & Luce, C. (1996) Effect of perspective taking on the cognitive representation of persons: A merging of self and other. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(4), 713-726. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.70.4.713
Donelli, B. (2016, May 2). Muslims on what it’s like to live in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au.
Dovidio, J.F., Kawakami, K., & Beach, K.R. (2001). Implicit and explicit attitudes: Examination of the relationship between measures of intergroup bias. In R. Brown & S.L. Gaertner (Eds.), Intergroup Processes (pp. 175-197). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. doi: 10.1002/9780470693421.ch9
Kenny, M., & Koziol, M. (2016, September 21). Half of all Australians want to ban Muslim immigration: Poll. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au.
Quinn, K. (2016, February 4). Here Come the Habibs: Breaking barriers or setting race relations back decades? The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au.
Skorinko, J.L, & Sinclair, S.A. (2013). Perspective taking can increase stereotyping: The role of apparent stereotype confirmation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(1), 10-18. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.07.009
Todd, A.R., Bodenhausen, G.V., & Galnisky, A.D. (2012) Perspective taking combats the denial of intergroup discrimination. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(3), 738-745. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.12.011
Todd, A.R., Bodenhausen, G.V., Richeson, J.A., & Galinsky, A.D. (2011). Perspective taking combats automatic expressions of racial bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(6), 1027-1042. doi: 10.1037/a0022308
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